Chapter 1 - The Woman in the Fire
Fire did not care whether you were rich or poor.
It did not care what family you belonged to, how much money sat in your bank account, or how many people feared your name.
At 2:15 in the morning, fire cared only about oxygen.
And the three-story brownstone half a block ahead of Sadie Brooks had plenty of it.
Sadie stopped beneath the freezing Chicago rain.
She had been walking home from another twelve-hour shift at the diner, her feet aching inside cheap boots and her hands buried in the pockets of a beige trench coat that had stopped being waterproof sometime around its third winter.
She smelled burning plastic.
Then she saw the orange glow.
Smoke poured from the ground-floor windows.
Sadie stared for one stunned second before pulling out her phone.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
“There’s a building on fire.”
She gave the dispatcher the intersection.
“Fire and rescue are on the way. Stay away from the structure.”
“Okay.”
Sadie lowered the phone.
That should have been the end of her involvement.
She was twenty-six years old.
She worked double shifts carrying coffee and burgers to people who sometimes left quarters as tips.
She had student loans from a nursing program she had been forced to abandon two years earlier.
She had exactly enough money to make rent if nothing unexpected happened.
Being a hero was definitely not in the budget.
Sadie stepped backward.
Then a second-floor window shattered.
Glass crashed onto the sidewalk.
Through the roar of the flames came something quieter.
A cough.
Then a voice.
“Help…”
Sadie froze.
Someone was inside.
The dispatcher’s warning flashed through her mind.
Stay away from the structure.
She should have listened.
Instead, Sadie ran.
She crossed the slick street and raced up the concrete steps.
The front door was locked.
“Hello!”
Another cough came from upstairs.
Sadie grabbed a heavy ceramic planter beside the entrance and slammed it through the narrow glass panel next to the door.
The glass broke.
She reached through, found the lock, and opened the door.
Heat struck her immediately.
Sadie dropped low.
Smoke swallowed the hallway.
She covered her mouth with her coat and crawled.
“Where are you?”
“Up here.”
The voice was barely audible.
Sadie reached the staircase.
Every rational instinct told her to stop.
Instead, she climbed.
She found the elderly woman near the second-floor landing.
She was tiny, gray-haired, and dressed in a pale floral nightgown. Smoke had darkened her face, and she was struggling to breathe.
Sadie knelt beside her.
“I’ve got you.”
The woman blinked.
“My son…”
“He can meet us outside.”
“My son will be angry.”
Despite everything, Sadie almost laughed.
“Then he can yell at me after we get out.”
She pulled the woman upright.
The elderly woman was small, but carrying someone who could barely stand was different from carrying a tray of dishes.
Sadie put the woman’s arm around her shoulders.
“One step at a time.”
They started down.
Something crashed behind them.
Sadie did not look.
“Stay with me.”
The old woman coughed against her shoulder.
They reached the first floor.
The front door seemed impossibly far away.
Sadie kept moving.
Five steps.
Ten.
Then cold rain hit her face.
They were outside.
Sadie stumbled down the stairs and collapsed onto the sidewalk with the elderly woman still in her arms.
For several seconds, neither moved.
Then Sadie heard sirens.
Red lights appeared at the end of the block.
“See?” she whispered. “Your son can yell at me now.”
The woman’s lips moved.
Sadie leaned closer.
“What?”
“You saved me.”
Sadie shook her head.
“Save your breath.”
Firefighters arrived.
Paramedics rushed toward them.
Someone wrapped a thick gray emergency blanket around the elderly woman.
“You brought her out?” a paramedic asked.
Sadie nodded.
“You need medical attention too.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re not okay.”
Sadie looked down.
Her hands were red.
Her coat was ruined.
Her lungs burned every time she breathed.
Then she thought about emergency-room bills.
She thought about missing work.
She thought about the landlord who had already reminded her twice that rent was due Friday.
While everyone’s attention shifted toward the elderly woman, Sadie stepped backward.
Then again.
Nobody stopped her.
She disappeared into the rain.
She had no idea that the woman she had carried out of the burning house was Rosa Castile.
And she certainly had no idea who Rosa’s son was.
Twenty minutes later, a black sedan stopped behind the fire trucks.
Dominic Castile stepped out.
He wore a charcoal suit with no coat.
Rain soaked his dark hair almost instantly.
Men moved aside when he approached.
Dominic ignored them.
He saw the stretcher.
“Mother.”
Rosa opened her eyes.
Dominic’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But the cold mask disappeared for half a second.
He took her hand.
“I’m here.”
“The girl.”
“What girl?”
Rosa’s fingers tightened around his.
“She came inside.”
Dominic looked toward the burning building.
“What are you talking about?”
“She saved me.”
Dominic slowly stood.
He found Carmine near the firefighters.
“Who pulled my mother out?”
Carmine looked uncomfortable.
“Not the fire department.”
Dominic stared at him.
“What?”
“They found Rosa outside.”
“Then who did it?”
“Nobody knows.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
Carmine continued.
“Witnesses saw a young woman. Dark hair. Beige coat. She disappeared before anyone got her name.”
Dominic looked at the burning house.
His mother’s bedroom was on the second floor.
The staircase was already beginning to collapse.
Whoever had gone inside had risked everything.
Dominic did not believe in unexplained kindness.
In his world, favors had prices.
Debts had consequences.
And strangers did not walk into burning buildings for no reason.
“Find her.”
Carmine hesitated.
“She may just be someone who happened to be passing.”
Dominic turned toward him.
“Find her anyway.”
Twenty-four hours later, a manila folder landed on Dominic’s desk.
SADIE BROOKS.
Age twenty-six.
Waitress.
Former nursing student.
No criminal record.
No connection to Dominic.
No connection to anyone who mattered in his world.
Dominic read the financial summary twice.
Almost no savings.
Student debt.
Overdue utilities.
Cheap apartment.
She had not even gone to a hospital after the fire.
One of Carmine’s men had seen her buying gauze and burn cream from a pharmacy.
Dominic closed the folder.
“She went into that house for a stranger,” Carmine said.
Dominic stared through the penthouse windows at Chicago below.
“Apparently.”
“She doesn’t want anything.”
“Everyone wants something.”
Carmine gave him a strange look.
“Maybe that’s the problem.”
Dominic glanced back at him.
“What does that mean?”
“You understand people who want money. You understand people who want power. You understand enemies.”
Carmine nodded toward Sadie’s photograph.
“You don’t understand her.”
Dominic said nothing.
Then Carmine gave him the second piece of news.
The fire had not been accidental.
Investigators had found evidence that someone deliberately started it.
And whoever had done it might eventually discover that a civilian had carried Rosa out.
Sadie had not simply saved a stranger.
Without realizing it, she had stepped into someone else’s war.
Dominic rose.
“Get the cars.”
“Where are we going?”
Dominic picked up Sadie’s file.
“To make sure the woman who saved my mother lives long enough to regret meeting us.”
Across the city, Sadie sat on the edge of her bed trying to wrap fresh gauze around her blistered hands.
Someone knocked.
Three slow knocks.
Sadie looked toward the door.
“Who is it?”
A deep male voice answered.
“Sadie Brooks?”
Her stomach tightened.
“Yes?”
“My employer would like to speak with you.”
“I’m not interested.”
Silence.
Then:
“I’m afraid he already knows that.”
Sadie stood.
She approached the door and opened it with the chain still attached.
Two enormous men in dark suits stood outside.
Sadie stared at them.
“Who are you?”
The first man looked directly at her.
“The son of the woman you pulled out of that fire wants to meet you.”
Sadie’s fingers tightened around the door.
“And if I say no?”
The man paused.
Then he stepped aside.
At the end of the hallway stood another man.
Tall.
Dark-haired.
Dressed in an immaculate black suit.
He looked nothing like a grateful son coming to say thank you.
Dominic Castile met Sadie’s eyes.
May you like
And for the first time since running into the fire, Sadie wondered whether saving Rosa had been the most dangerous decision of her life.
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